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What if you were a geeky twelve-year old relentlessly tormented by the Vikings, the bullying buffoons at your middle school? And what if your super-scientist mom happened to be working on a top-secret cloning potion that would enable you to send a duplicate You to school while you play video games and tinker with inventions in the comfort of your bedroom lab? Sounds like a plan, right?
That's what Fisher Bas thinks, until his clone winds up more popular than the original and is eventually kidnapped by the local mad scientist bent on world domination. Now, to save his genetic twin, Fisher must accept who he is, apply his intellectual abilities, and face his fears (with a little help from his pet flying pig).
Popular Clone (Egmont, 2012), author/actor M. E. Castle's debut novel for middle graders, is a quick-paced, action-packed read sure to satisfy the tween set. As Kirkus enthuses about this first installment of a planned Clone series, "Fisher’s struggles to fit in, to relate to girls and to uncover and preserve his true self feel genuine, making him a misfit and unlikely hero worth rooting for. An inventive new take on the traditional bully story."
“I wrote a full chapter based on their prompt and they liked it enough to bring me onto the project.” —CASTLE
AUTHORLINK: How did the book come about? Did you conceive of it as a series?
CASTLE: Popular Clone as a project was conceived by the clever and exciting duo who run [literary development company] Paper Lantern Lit, Lauren Oliver and Lexa Hillyer. There was a twofold hiring process. I initially sent them several samples of my work, and when they liked those, they sent me a short prompt briefly describing a single chapter of the book. I wrote a full chapter based on their prompt and they liked it enough to bring me onto the project. After I’d come onboard and the writing process had begun, we started to talk about the possibility of sequels.
AUTHORLINK: What was your writing process? Did you outline first or just pound it out? How long did it take to get to completed first draft?
CASTLE: The way that Paper Lantern works is that the author is given an outline, chapter-by-chapter. There’s certainly wiggle room there, and as you work more and become more familiar with them, you gain more input about the overall plot and structure. There’s a lot of back-and-forth as you get through the initial draft, and the real shape of the work is gradually hammered out. It’s a pretty quick schedule once you get rolling. A proper first draft of Popular Clone was done inside of five months.
AUTHORLINK: What parts were the most challenging to write? What came easily?
“The most challenging thing for me was adjusting my writing style for a young audience.” —CASTLE
CASTLE: The most challenging thing for me was adjusting my writing style for a young audience. My other writing tends towards long, elaborate sentence structure and a very broad vocabulary, plus humor that’s either too dark or too complicated for middle grade readers. What came easily were the fantastical elements and the absurd whimsy, which there is plenty of. It took a while to really get that out, because I was still uncomfortable in the style and I wasn’t sure how far to go, but when I finally let myself go as silly and as bizarre as I wanted, it flowed pretty easily.
AUTHORLINK: When you were in middle school, were you a Viking or a Fisher Bas?
CASTLE: My middle school experience was interesting because I was a Fisher Bas mind in a Viking body. I was one of the biggest kids in the grade by the time I was Fisher’s age, so nobody pushed me around. Nevertheless, I was every bit as isolated as Fisher is. As the towering menace of the emerging social hierarchy began to rise, I pretty much turtled up until midway through high school. There was a small group of good friends with whom I occasionally spent time when I wasn’t studying, singing, or acting, and I spent the rest of my time by myself. A lot of reading and computer games.
AUTHORLINK: Why write for young readers?
“There is nothing that can nurture and expand a young mind so well as reading...”
—CASTLE
CASTLE: There is nothing that can nurture and expand a young mind so well as reading, in large part because it opens that mind to such a vast expanse of human history. Human civilization is defined by writing, and the amount of scientific, artistic, linguistic, and historical knowledge—not to mention the array of thinking skills—that a thorough sampling of the written word exposes a person to is huge, and unprintably valuable. Young readers become adult readers, and the more readers there are on Earth, the better.
AUTHORLINK: How did the Egmont deal (multi-book, no less!) happen?
CASTLE: One of the best things about working with Paper Lantern is that the two women who began the whole thing were already experienced and knowledgeable in the field, with friends and contacts in the industry. I don’t know the exact details of the deal with Egmont and other such transactions because I wasn’t directly carrying them out. My biggest shortcoming as a writer has nothing to do with writing, it’s my difficulty with the business side of things. I’m trying to learn as I go along and I think I’m improving, but I’m very, very glad to be working with people who actually know what they’re doing.
AUTHORLINK: Is book two written? When will it publish? Can you give us any hints about it or others in the series? I'm thinking Fisher goes to Hollywood...
CASTLE: Book two, Cloneward Bound, is written. It will be published in spring 2012, but, beyond that, a specific publishing date hasn’t been set. But you can be sure that we’ll spread the word far and wide when it does. For now, I’ll say that Fisher does leave Palo Alto and meets an even crazier assortment of characters than before.
AUTHORLINK: Are you working on any other projects?
“Where writing is concerned, this is occupying all of my time for now, and I’m having a great time...”
—CASTLE
CASTLE: Where writing is concerned, this is occupying all of my time for now, and I’m having a great time at it. Theatrically, I’m going to be performing here in New York in a pair of Shakespeare plays—Measure for Measure and Merchant of Venice—in February with an exciting young company called Adirondack Shakespeare. You should check it out; it’ll be a great time.
About Susan VanHecke
Susan VanHecke is an author and editor of books for adults and children. Her titles for young people include Raggin' Jazzin' Rockin': A History of American Musical Instrument Makers (Boyds Mills, 2011), Rock 'N' Roll Soldier (HarperCollins, 2009), and An Apple Pie For Dinner (Cavendish, 2009). To find out more about Susan and her books, visit www.susanvanhecke.com and www.susanvanheckeeditorial.com.
